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Archery Bow Grips Questions

How to release a shot perfectly in archery? and information on gripping the bow,body postures and follow through. Can somebody give me accurate information? thx anything will help

Manthebrace forgot to add that to do his release you need to be in a hand stand position. j/k, but please what ever you do, don't follow that advice.

Go to that website Archerdude posted, it's a very good starting steps to archery. With those simple steps you can go all the way to the top. Mind you that archery form is just a set of steps to shoot the bow, any sets of steps can be considered "good" form, as long as they're consistent. The problem is finding a set of steps that are easily replicated from one shot to the next.

With a Mediterranean release that is most commonly used in western style archery, the release is done by relaxing the muscles of the forearm. This requires practice, as with any other animals, our muscles were designed to contract on command but not the other way around. Muscles usually don't go from full tension to totally relaxed very quickly, your survival doesn't depend on muscles relaxing. There are several drills to make these muscles relax. First one is to train your fingers to relax as much as possible while mantaining some tension. When you walk around carrying your briefcase or grocery bags, try to carry them on your fingers, just like when you have those fingers on the bow string. That is, take your three fingers, index, middle and ring of your drawing hand. Make a hook, imagine the shape of the letter L. Thumb and pinky should be relaxed, when they're relaxed both will curl inward mimicking the other 3 fingers. Put the bag on these 3 fingers, and try to relax the forearm muscle as much as possible without dropping them. I do this with my bowcase whenever I walk with it. Just so happen my bowcase weigh as much as the draw weight of my bow, around 45lbs.

The second excercise, is to make a hook with the index finger of your bow hand, pretend that's the string. Now latch on to that hook with your draw fingers (index, middle and ring). Hold the linked hands in front of your face and apply force to pull them apart. Now concentrate on your forearm muscles and tell it to relax. Repeat this until your draw fingers don't flick open. The draw fingers after release should be in the same shape as they were before release. If they're relaxed they will curl.

Holding the bow, should be done with just enough force that the bow don't fall. Some people teach an open grip and just close the fingers after release, this actually is a bad habit. There should be no movement of the bow hand at release. Any movement of the bow hand changes pressure on the palm from shot to shot and is very hard to do consistently.

Posture, depend on the type of shooting, most likely you need to be standing straight up with a straight back. If you can, look at yourself in the mirror while you're at full draw or have a friend look at you. Make sure you don't lean to one side or the other. Leaning is a sign of imbalance, and might lead to collapsing.

Follow through should be a natural step. Like someone swinging a bat, or a golf club. It's a natural flow that happens if your body is relaxed. The most telling is the draw arm. If your draw hand explodes outward away from your face after the release, it says that you're not using your back to draw, the only way this can happen is if you have a lot of tension in your draw arm. With the draw arm relaxed, it will fold in and your hand will just glide back along your face. Now how far it glides back depends on your flexibility and the pull of the bow.